Cover is NSFW:
The Film:
Another World Entertainment are a relatively new company to enter the highly competitive DVD market, and they are one that are going for the 'cult company' approach ala Blue Underground and NoShame. So far, after viewing their releases of Mountain Of The Cannibal God and Zombie Holocaust, I have nothing but praise for this company. This film is volume four of their 'Cannibal Series' range. As with a lot of these 'exploitation' zombie and cannibal films, Eaten Alive has also been known under a slew of other names including Emerald Jungle, Eaten Alive By The Cannibals and Doomed To Die. Why these films were released with so many alternate titles, I'll never know but I wish they weren't to avoid the confusion it can cause the casual consumer.
Directed by genre legend Umberto Lenzi (Man From Deep River), Eaten Alive starts in New York City and shows us three men being murdered by blow darts. When a policeman sees him murder the third man, he shouts to him to stop but he is run over by a wagon before anything can happen. In the killers bag however, he has video footage of some form of tribal ceremony. The police are also investigating the disappearance of twenty Americans who they believe joined a cult and when the sister of one of these missing people, Sheila Morris (Janet Agren - Seven Deadly Females) sees the footage she is goes straight to New Guinea to find her sibling. To get to the camp, she knows she must travel through miles of dangerous jungle terrain, inhabited by cannibal tribes, so she hires American ex-military man Mark Butler (Robert Kerman - Spiderman) to take her to them. When they get there though, they find her sister is alive and well, though heavily brainwashed by the evil Jonas (Ivan Rassimov - Humanoid). Will they escape the jungle alive? Watch the film and find out, because I'm not going to spoil it for you!
Eaten Alive is an enjoyable, yet formulaic cannibal romp with glaring similarities to Umberto Lenzi's previous film Man From Deep River (with some scenes even being re-used in this one). However, the acting is a little better with Jonas being a scarier character running his cult than the cannibals who viciously eat people whilst they are still alive. The score is one of the best I've heard for this genre, with an atmospheric but very simple track by Roberto Donati and Fiamma Maglione. Genre fans will love this film, but will also notice just how formulaic it actually is. I recommend this to film to horror fans, but you certainly need to have a strong stomach to sit through it!
The DVD:
Video:
Another World have presented this film in a slightly cropped 1.78:1 asect ratio (1.85:1 being the OAR). When I first started watching it, I didn't think the quality was quite as good as previous AWE releases though still looked quite good. This was how th picture was meant to be for all the scenes set in New York, with a slightly 'fuzzy' feel to the proceedings. Thankfully the bulk of the film is set in the jungle and these scenes are free of this contrast problem. All in all, it's still a nice picture for what we have beome accosted to for this genre, but isn't as good as other films that have AWE have released.
Audio:
Another World have included just one track on the disc, and it's an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track. There are no problems with it other than some minor hiss in the background, but this is certainly a film that would benefit from a DTS track, a DD 5.1 track or even just a 2.0 Surround track, just to make the viewer feel even more uneasy and to add to the atmosphere. Good, but underwhelming. Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles have also been included.
Extras:
All the extras are pretty unsubstantial, yet great to have included. Rather than go into detail of all the extras seperately I'm just going to list them and write a few lines at the end (due to the nature of the extras).
Here's what we get:
Slideshow:
- Belgian Lobbycards (0:35)
- German Lobbycards (2:00)
- Mexican Lobbycards (0:30)
- Italian Lobbycards (0:40)
- Posters (1:05)
- Press Sheets (0:15)
Umberto Lenzi Filography (3:21)
Bonus Trailers:
- "Cannibal Holocaust" (2:57)
- "Cannibal Ferox" (4:17)
- "Mountain of the Cannibal God" (3:45)
- "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (2:32)
- "The Beyond" (3:21)
- "The New York Ripper" (3:11)
- "Zombi Holocaust" (2:44)
- "Zombi Flesh Eaters" (3:36)
- "Puzzle" (3:12)
- "City of the Living Dead" (2:54)
US Trailer (3:03)
German Trailer (2:24)
The slideshows are very nicely presented with the backgroud music very much appreciated. The pictures slide through at a nice leisurely pace never going to fast orslow. The filmography is in-depth but I would've liked static screens where I could've changed pages on my own accord. A biography would've been a nice addition aswell. The bonus trailers are all for other AWE releases and the theatrical trailers are also an interesting watch.
